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Tag Archives: Toffee

With Halloween officially over, the need to prepare for the Holiday Season is already nagging at me. I love making all sorts of sweet treats this time of year, but I am always nervous to try out new recipes. I am starting to experiment now, so I don’t end up with desserts that don’t turn out right at the last minute. And I don’t care if it’s only November 1st, there will be Christmas music playing while I bake.

My first experiment is with English toffee. I LOVE toffee. The only other time I have tried to make it, it didn’t end up turning out at all. So of course toffee is the first thing I want to try my hand at. As far as ingredients go, toffee is extremely simple and all recipes are pretty similar.

You’re going to want to get your toffee-cooling surface ready first. I just used a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Whatever you choose to use, be sure to line it with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Unless you are using silicone molds, which I’m hoping to purchase for future toffee.

In a heave sauce pan, melt the butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt together. Your burner needs to be on high. Continuously stir the mixture for the entire duration of heating time with a metal or wooden spoon. And I mean stir VIGOROUSLY. If your arm muscles aren’t begging for mercy, you aren’t stirring enough.

Bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Continue stirring and heating on high for about 5 to 7 minutes, until the toffee is caramel-colored (you’ve seen toffee before- it needs to look the color you would expect toffee to be). If you have a candy thermometer, that’s about 300 degrees.

As soon as the mixture has reached desired color, IMMEDIATELY poor onto your prepared cooling surface. If you are using silicone molds, use a metal scoop and make sure to work quickly and keep stirring the mixture as you go.

Allow the toffee to cool completely, which should take about 2 hours.

Melt the chocolate. I simply microwaved my chocolate chips for a couple minutes until they were easily spreadable. You can get all fancy with a double-boiler if you so desire. Use a butter knife or a spatula to spread the melted chocolate evenly over the toffee.

Sprinkle on the chopped nuts while the chocolate is still melt-y. The chocolate will take a few hours to completely harden.

After the toffee and the chocolate are completely cooled & hardened, break it apart or pop it out of your molds.

The above photo is what your toffee should look like. This was my second batch. My first batch didn’t turn out so well:

As you can see, it’s way too light in color. This is because I took it off the stove a couple minutes too early. It started to look like it was burning on the bottom of my saucepan, and I panicked. The second batch, I simply stirred faster when it got to that point and let it get darker in color. It even smelled a little burnt, but it tastes amazing and the texture turned out exactly right.

Toffee makes an excellent gift at Christmas, and is always tasty to have for a treat. If you do decide to give it a try, don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t turn out right for you the first time. I have found that candy takes patience and experimenting. I hope my tips help!